


might be holding your hand, but i'm holding it loose

by seditonem



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 04:26:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/935334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seditonem/pseuds/seditonem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Admitting it is like admitting it’s real, and once it’s really there he’ll have to deal with it. Dealing with it means talking about it, eventually, and for now, he’s completely fine with just holding his secret close, like a hot water bottle on a cold day, a warm mug of tea.</p>
<p>(occasionally, very occasionally, i write things just because i want to. this was one of those times.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	might be holding your hand, but i'm holding it loose

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: explicit sexual activity, language  
> disclaimer: completely fictional.

It can be difficult, sometimes, to step away from a situation and realise that you’re utterly fucked, Matt thinks. Like now - but perhaps it’s not so much difficult to realise that he’s fucked, because he is, and he knows it; perhaps it’s more that he doesn’t really want to admit it. Out loud. Even in the quiet of his own apartment. Not even locked in the bathroom, when the mirror’s fogged up and the whole place is quiet and close around him.

Admitting it is like admitting it’s real, and once it’s really there he’ll have to deal with it. Dealing with it means talking about it, eventually, and for now, he’s completely fine with just holding his secret close, like a hot water bottle on a cold day, a warm mug of tea.

It’s about Karen, of course.

Of course.

#

“Do you want, um -” She pauses. Rifles through her bottomless bag, hair falling across her face until she brushes it away absently. “Sour cream and onion or prawn cocktail?”

“Surprise me,” Matt replies, not looking up from the script.

She throws the bag of crisps at his face. He retaliates with pretending to unscrew the cap of her bottle of water and splash her in face. She squeals, covering her face with her hands and turning away.

“Every time,” he grins, shaking his head, and she ruffles her hand almost savagely through his hair.

“One day I might just stop bringing you food and _then_ what will you do?” she threatens, dropping down into the chair opposite his.

“Starve,” he tells her, solemnly.

“Hmm, well, not like you’d last very long, not with the pathetic amount of body mass you’ve got going on there,” she muses, pinching his arm gently and tugging at his sleeve.

“You’re one to talk,” he mutters. She blushes.

#

They kissed once.

She wasn’t drunk, and she tasted of nothing at all except apple.

#

At the wrap party, Karen wears a completely see-through shirt and tiny black shorts. Her bra is flesh-coloured, strapless, and she’s wearing Converse with a hole on the toe. She manages to look simultaneously sexy and normal; the double-take Matt does nearly gives him a crick in the neck.

He hands her a plate of jammy dodgers and thinks, _Tonight._.

Because the warmth he carries around with him is like the stifling heat before a thunderstorm, and perhaps after the storm breaks he can go around like a normal person again.

#

“I want you to kiss me,” Karen says, quietly, “but I’m not quite sure how to ask.”

“Sounds a little like you just did,” Matt replies. They’re close, very close now, wedged in between her open door and the wall, just standing there. His hands seem fused to her hips, and he’s not sure he could move, even if he wanted to, even with the hard wall pressed up against his back. He watches as she turns and pushes the door shut gently, and then looks back at him. The soft cups of her bra move with her; god, he wants to touch the swell of them. He wants to put his hands all over her, touch her, learn her. Make her breathless with the enormity of what they’re doing.

Matt pulls her a little closer, just a hair’s breadth. Moves in a little closer, so there’s hardly an inch between their mouths.

“Yeah, ok, come on,” she whispers, and just because of that he holds back a little longer, licks his lips deliberately so his tongue almost touches her lips. It feels a little like there’s no air left in the room, all of it sucked out the second the door closed behind them, and Matt wants to breathe her in, inhale her like she’s the new oxygen.

“Ok,” he replies, voice so quiet it’s hardly audible even to his own ears, and presses a kiss against her lips.

It feels very brave, and very stupid. But she probably knows that, so he does it again. Just closed-mouth kisses, brief and cool and almost friendly. Her eyes flutter shut, like she’s enjoying it, and then her nails dig bluntly into the back of his neck and there’s no denying her any longer. She opens to his mouth, tracing her tongue slowly against his until they both get bored with the teasing and he surges against her, pressing her into the opposite wall. Like maybe they’ll meld together if he could just find the right place to grip her thighs as he pulls her against him.

She undoes her shorts with one hand and very little space, since he’s not willing to let her go for more than a second, and then shimmies out of them, holding him slightly away with one hand as he bites her collarbone. It leaves a hot pink mark against her skin. Her knickers follow suit, a thin scrap of lace that looks like it was given to her by someone else. He chooses not to examine that thought.

“I want - ” she begins, but he already knows, he wants it too, sinking to his knees and hooking one of her legs over his shoulder so she almost falls, a stray giggle escaping as she finds her balance. He traces the line of her folds with one finger, feels the wetness, bites his lip and leans in. She sighs when he licks her slowly, then breathes in fast as he flickers his tongue against her clit.

“Yeah?” he breathes, suddenly hesitant, and she shudders when the air hits her.

“Yeah,” she whispers, one hand dropping onto his head and tangling in his hair. “Yeah.”

“How about you do some of the work, eh?” he suggests, grinning up at her. Half the fun is teasing her; he couldn’t be happier right where he is, the taste of her still on his tongue, but he’s pound-nails hard and talking takes his mind off it.

Also his ridiculously tight trousers are even tighter now. Perhaps baggy jeans do have their pros.

"Fuck you, fuck you," Karen mutters, stumbling over the words, and pulls her shirt over her head. Her hands slide down her chest, between her legs, and in two seconds she has a finger inside her cunt, her eyes shut.

"Oh, god," Matt gapes, and Karen manages a weak smile, her other hand pressing into his hair as she adds another finger. "Three, c'mon, c'mon, Kaz," he says, letting his hands frame her thighs as she starts a slow rhythm. She presses deep, then pulls her fingers almost all the way out, and her hips follow the movement, jutting out towards him. He can see how wet she is, the glistening shine of her fingers and upper thighs almost obscene in the dim light of the hallway, how the opening of her cunt seems to cling to her fingers as she pauses. "Don't stop on my account."

"Shut _up_ ," she hisses, "shut up shut up shut up." Like a mantra, breathed only for him here in the dark. He obliges, moving in to press his tongue against the hood of her clit, gentle pressure she moans into. He pushes her fingers back in, feeling her fuck herself a little faster. "Can't believe you're making me -- in the hallway, Matt, please -" He cuts her off, bats her hand away as she pulls out and goes to work on her properly, because teasing is too much now. She tastes bitter, musky, and he flickers his tongue into her; can breathe nothing but her smell, both hands gripping her thighs so tight she'll have marks. "Yes, yes," she gasps, arching her back like she wants to pull away and push closer at once, and he moves up, sucks her clit gently until she squirms in his grasp. He slips his thumb into her, then two fingertips, teasing until she slides down onto him. "Hurry, please," she sighs, and he can't deny her.

She comes a few minutes later, her hips rocking almost violently against the three fingers he has curled inside her. Her wetness covers his hand, and he moves his fingers away to lick at her, leaning back on his heels to get closer until she pushes on his shoulder.

"Good?" he asks, quietly, and she nods, waving one hand in the air.

"Yeah, just -- just. Give me a min," she murmurs, and knees him gently in the chest. "Get up, stupid."

He catches her knee, pulls her down onto the floor, and kisses her.

#

There's music on in the background. Matt can't tell who it is, what they're singing about; hardly seems to matter. Karen rocks gently against him, her hands on her breasts, rolling one nipple gently between her fingers. He wants to do that, touch her, have free reign over her, but his hands are on her legs, her wonderful endless legs, holding her open for him as he pushes in and pulls out, slow, _slow_.

She's so slim, he thinks, slim enough to cradle to him, slim enough he's almost afraid she'll curl away from all the attention he wants to lavish on her, so he keeps his pace, even though he's pretty sure if he carries on he'll combust from denied release. Some things are worth waiting for.

"I know you want to," she says, quietly, looking up him. "Go on." She pushes his fringe away from his face, curling her fingers into his hair. Those fingers have been inside her, he thinks; that mouth kissed his after he brought her off. And suddenly it's easy to do as she says, to push faster, to pull her closer. He sits back on his heels, pulling her onto his lap, her breasts pressed to his chest. Her skin slip-slides against his, and he can feel it when her breath catches as he gets the right angle.

"Karen," he begins, but she shushes him, kisses him breathless, and he couldn't stop himself from coming if he tried. It whites out his vision, makes him gasp and shudder as he bites her lips.

He lowers her down slowly, and Karen crosses her ankles behind his back, keeping him close. As the rush of his release fades into pleasant tingles, she smiles slowly up at him. He's going soft inside her, but she doesn't move, just watches him, one hand on his neck, over his pulse.

"I'm not crushing you?" he asks, warily. Karen laughs.

"What, with your bony figure?" she giggles, and tugs at his shoulder. Her smile slips away. "No, I'm fine." Her cheeks are flushed. It occurs to him that she didn't come again, but she doesn't seem to care. Doesn't stop him reaching down and pressing two fingers around her clit, just gentle pressure, but it gets her breathing harder.

"Come again for me," he says, a gentle command, and licks at the puckered skin of her left nipple, worrying it with his teeth.

"I hate you," she whines, but doesn't stop him when he pulls out and goes down on her again.

"Karen, Karen," he murmurs against her cunt, flicking his tongue over the sensitive skin, the heat of her opening. "Such an awful liar." Two fingers, gently curled, and she tenses, feet pressed hard against the bed. "What ever am I to do with you?"

She shudders against him, and he has enough thought to pull away and watch her this time.

#

He has marks on his shoulders the next day, and the next. They fade soon, and after a week he can't even pretend anymore.

#

They do an interview and go for coffee at a tiny place where the ancient owners have probably never heard of Doctor Who. She sits next to him, both of them facing the exotic selection of brews on offer, letting the silence hang for a little longer.

“So,” she says, and her accent sounds more pronounced. She elbows him gently. He elbows her back, and they grin, laugh, and she shakes her hair around her face.

“Good coffee,” he murmurs, and realises he’s incredibly tired. He’s been working - he can’t quite remember on what, though - and so has she. There are shadows beneath her eyes, dark like mascara smudges.

The thing that Matt's carried with him, the warmth in his chest, burns hot and painful in his throat now, making the coffee seem suddenly cold in comparison. So much for the calm after the storm, he thinks, bitterly.

At some point while they sit there, Karen puts her hand on his, and they look at their fingers like they're something new and unknown.

He'd wait for her, he knows that. He's just not sure, all the time, if she would do the same for him.

"I wish," he says, tracing her index finger with his own, and the ending never comes. How to put everything he needs to say into one sentence? How to tell her that he wants her, that he knows she wants him too, that he’d settle for quick kisses and a covert relationship if only it was with _her_?

"Yeah. Me too," she replies, and she's very pale when he looks at her.

At four they leave. He hugs her goodbye on the pavement, and walks away without looking back.


End file.
